Political discussion and ranting, premised upon the fact that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Monday, February 27, 2006

It's So Much Easier When Other People Do The Work

It is interesting to read that the U.S. government feels the need to get vast amounts of data from Google and other search engines, in order to somehow demonstrate that people find child pornography on the Internet, given that it appears that 40% of child pornography (at least, in terms of that downloaded in Britain) originates in the United States.

Less than 1 per cent of the sites were located in the UK, highlighting the success of the police and the IWF in countering domestically generated child pornography. ... Around 40 per cent of child pornography accessed in the UK comes from the US. A further 28 per cent comes from Russia where, although the production of child pornography is increasing rapidly, the authorities seem reluctant to act. 'There is no liaison with Russia to tackle these sites, so they stay up almost ad infinitum,' Robbins said.

A difference in approach between the US and UK authorities has also led to problems. 'If a site is found in the UK, it's usually taken down within 48 hours,' Robbins said. 'In America they tend to leave the sites up once they are identified while the police gather evidence for a sting operation. That's a problem for us in the UK, because people continue to access the sites and commit offences.'

You would think that the U.S. would install better statistics software on the sites it is monitoring, and log the search engine referral data....